On July 19, US warplanes dropped bombs on a crowd of civilians in the Syrian village of Tokhar. When the dust cleared, a minimum of 95 people were killed, and some groups claimed that as the wounded began dying, the toll rose to nearly 200.

CENTCOM seems to accept the pieces of this story. There was definitely a crowd of civilians, and there were definitely US warplanes dropping 500-pound bombs on them, and those bombs definitely hit the target. Getting them to the part where bombing a bunch of civilians with deadly explosives meant killing them, however, is a herculean task.

On Wednesday, the U.S. military announced that it was pursuing a formal investigation into the July 19 airstrike in a northern Syrian city that observers estimate killed at least 73 civilians. A subsequent airstrike in the same city “may have resulted” in yet more civilian casualties, Centcom disclosed late Thursday….

At least 28 more civilians were killed in the latest incident, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, including women and children. “The death toll is expected to rise because there are some people in critical situation,” the Observatory said in a statement.